Stephen had dealt with literal nightmares. Demons from this dimension and a slew of others. The ends of universes, stars, worlds, people. He’d seen just about everything, survived most of it, and made a point never to forget a moment of it. It wasn’t in his nature to pass through life without taking note of it, without painfully and excruciatingly taking the time to learn from it. But there were always some things he was less prepared to deal with than some of his colleagues who had more martial experience, and an expertise with how to deal with that horrible corporeal tragedy called war.
Bullets, for example, were not one of his strong suits. Magic would turn away much, but the spells required to repel bullets took too much time to conjure perfectly. Comparatively, one body standing in front of another was a considerably better shield than a half-botched spell that could just as easily incinerate a city block than save the day. So he stayed by the child that had been trapped when the bombs hit the subway system. Because leave it to him to take a train the one day he shouldn’t have, and get left with a boy terrified and silently sobbing for his mother, who was either crushed or somewhere on the other side of the tunnel cave in.
No one else in the tail of the train had survived or been stuck with him, leaving only the two of them to whatever end had been planned for them. And when a tactical squad armed to the teeth burst through the back door of the train compartment, he began to get the idea that it had been a master plan indeed.
One, most likely, not reserved for the child he was crouching over. But he couldn’t risk the thugs surrounding them opening fire and killing the boy even through him, or worse yet, using that innocent life against him.
“I have to admit, for someone willing to pull a terrorist stunt like this in the middle of the city, you didn’t exactly capitalize on your own expenses. Ever heard of killing more birds with a single stone?” he griped, feeling the small boy’s shaking hands grasp onto his own. The boy’s tremors were very different from his own, though both were involuntary. The boy was terrified, Stephen was simply... prepared. For the worst possible outcome, as always, even if it meant getting a few holes put in him to get the young lad home safe to his mother and undo whatever nonsense had been brought down literally on their heads.
The large one, standing front and center, was the one he’d directed the statements to. The mask and the boxer’s stature gave him away as the top dog, as well as the fact that even the most heavily armed goons among them backed away in deference, like the ripples following after the wake of a great wave. “Unless, of course, that wasn’t the point of this whole charade. In which case I might tempt at being impressed.”
